With the India story going all guns blazing, thanks to improved macroeconomic conditions and an uprecedented bull rally in the stock markets, private equity investors too are keeping faith in resurgent India. For the fifth quarter running, PE investments have seen an upsurge, rising to $3,01 billion in the third quarter of 2014, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report. This investment was done across 103 deals, registering a growth of 4% in value from the previous quarter, albeit with a 3% drop in volume. In the previous quarter (April – July 2014), $2.91 billion was invested in 106 deals.
According to the PwC MoneyTree India report (based on data from Venture Intelligence), compared against the same period last year, the value of deals rose by 97% despite a 9% reduction in volume.
The IT & IT-enabled services (ITeS) sector has bounced back as the leading sector, attracting $1.64 billion in 56 deals. It is more than a two fold jump as compared to Q2CY14 and two and a half times higher than Q3CY13. In the previous quarter, the sector attracted $746 million in 47 deals, while during the third quarter of last year, it saw $618 million in 41 deals.
The healthcare & life sciences sector emerged second in terms of investment value with investments totalling $292 million in 11 deals.
The education sector performed remarkably well with highest investment in recent times, $176 million n 4 deals, a multi-fold jump from previous quarters, followed by the manufacturing sector with $147 million. The banking and financial sector dropped by 85% to $147 million from $958 million in Q2CY14.
The exit activity in the third quarter of 2014 has dropped by 18% with a total value of $1.11 billion in 31 deals. With a single deal worth $234 million, the telecom sector dominated the exit space in this quarter followed by the manufacturing sector ($229 million in 2 deals).
